Forrest Ackerman Gone for the Moment: He'll Be Back

The man who coined the term "sci-fi," who likely did more than anyone else to popularize horror and sci-fi cinema, and who long ago inspired a certain Mad Mycologist to a lifelong love of all things weird on celluloid, videotape and paper, has passed away at age 92.

Forrest J Ackerman, writer-editor who coined 'sci-fi,' dies at 92

Forrest J Ackerman, who influenced a generation of young horror-movie fans with Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine and spent a lifetime amassing what has been called the world's largest personal collection of science-fiction and fantasy memorabilia, has died. He was 92.

Ackerman, a writer, editor and literary agent who has been credited with coining the term "sci-fi" in the 1950s, died Thursday of heart failure at his home in Los Angeles, said John Sasser, a friend who is making a documentary on Ackerman...

As readers of this blog know, I love horror flicks. I've been a fan all my life, and Ackerman is one reason that's so. When I was but a little gore-pup, at the age of no more than 5 or 6, I used to visit a local newsstand near my grandparents' home in Brooklyn every month to get the latest issues of Warren Publishing's Creepy and Eerie magazines. One day, I noticed another magazine on the same rack. It was Ackerman's Famous Monsters of Filmland, and I was hooked. I read that magazine for years. I might not be the gorehound I am today were it not for Ackerman's successful effort to warp my young mind.

In fact, horror cinema would probably be very different were it not for Ackerman being right there as the genre blossomed in the drive-ins of the 1950's and 60's. I wonder if there would be a Troma today, for example, if not for Forrest J. Ackerman.

Not to worry, horror fans. Ackerman will be back shortly... no doubt as a 50' tall zombie with glowing purple eyes and tentacles for arms. If anyone could ever do it, it'd be Forry.

And when that happens, boils and ghouls, only the grateful shall be spared. So, thanks, Mr. Ackerman, for doing all you did — and will no doubt keep right on doing — to make me into the freak I am today. I truly appreciate it.

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George Carlin Dies

George Carlin Dead at 71

Shit
Piss
Fuck
Cunt
Cocksucker
Motherfucker
Tits
Thank you.

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Albert Hoffman, Father of LSD, Takes the Big Trip

Albert Hoffman, the Swiss scientist who discovered LSD, has passed away in Basel at the age of 102.

Hoffman's discovery of the potent psychotropic drug came while investigating the biochemistry of the ascomycetous fungus Claviceps purpurea, a pathogen of grasses. It was one of history's classic accidents, really. Hoffman knew that C. purpurea synthesized a number of alkaloids and those compounds were already known to be useful in medicine when Hoffman isolated one of them, D-lysergic acid, and from that produced the first ever batch of lysergic acid diethylamide, in 1938. In a moment of fateful laboratory sloppiness, some of his product got on his fingers and thereafter into his bloodstream purely by accident. While it's not the most glamorous of hypotheses about how this happened, one urban legend suggests that this might have occurred because he was picking his nose.

However it happened, Hoffman was floored by the experience and duly noted the effects. The potent mind-altering effects later targeted the drug as a potential treatment for some mental disorders and experiments were carried out for several years before the US counterculture of the 1960's got wind of the stuff, largely through the efforts of a wacky little Harvard psychologist named Timothy Leary (who was also a Massachusetts native, by the way, and started his university education at Worcester's own College of the Holy Cross). For better or for worse, Hoffman's discovery changed American and arguably all of Western culture thereafter. The recreational use and abuse of LSD led to it being made illegal in the US in 1966.

Unlike Leary, Hoffman wasn't a flamboyant character. He eventually became head of the research department of Sandoz pharmaceuticals and wrote a book about LSD, LSD, My Problem Child. He believed all his life that the drug could be used as a treatment for mental and emotional diseases — and he was probably right, although its doubtful that it will ever be accepted for such applications. Hoffman's "oops" of 1938 spawned events that were far beyond anything that Hoffman himself would have advocated for his "problem child."

If nothing else, Hoffman's claim to fame stands as testament to the accidents that happen in the course of scientific research that have the power to radically transform the world.

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Edward Lorenz Passes: Butterflies Observe Moment of Not Flapping

Edward Lorenz, the father of Chaos Theory whose ideas revolutionized thinking about dynamic systems across every discipline one can name, passed away yesterday at age 90. His ideas marked a revolution in the sciences on par with Einstein and Newton. Suffice to say that mankind's collective intelligence declined just a few points at the moment of his death — strongly supporting his theories, ironically enough.

Edward N. Lorenz, a Meteorologist and a Father of Chaos Theory, Dies at 90

Edward N. Lorenz, a meteorologist who tried to predict the weather with computers but instead gave rise to the modern field of chaos theory, died Wednesday at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 90...

In discovering "deterministic chaos," Dr. Lorenz established a principle that "profoundly influenced a wide range of basic sciences and brought about one of the most dramatic changes in mankind's view of nature since Sir Isaac Newton," said a committee that awarded him the 1991 Kyoto Prize for basic sciences.

Dr. Lorenz is best known for the notion of the "butterfly effect," the idea that a small disturbance like the flapping of a butterfly's wings can induce enormous consequences.

As recounted in the book "Chaos" by James Gleick, Dr. Lorenz's accidental discovery of chaos came in the winter of 1961. Dr. Lorenz was running simulations of weather using a simple computer model. One day, he wanted to repeat one of the simulations for a longer time, but instead of repeating the whole simulation, he started the second run in the middle, typing in numbers from the first run for the initial conditions.

The computer program was the same, so the weather patterns of the second run should have exactly followed those of the first. Instead, the two weather trajectories quickly diverged on completely separate paths.

At first, he thought the computer was malfunctioning. Then he realized that he had not entered the initial conditions exactly. The computer stored numbers to an accuracy of six decimal places, like 0.506127, while, to save space, the printout of results shortened the numbers to three decimal places, 0.506. When typing in the new conditions, Dr. Lorenz had entered the rounded-off numbers, and even this small discrepancy, of less than 0.1 percent, completely changed the end result...

Dr. Lorenz published his findings in 1963. "The paper he wrote in 1963 is a masterpiece of clarity of exposition about why weather is unpredictable," said J. Doyne Farmer, a professor at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico.

The following year, Dr. Lorenz published another paper that described how a small twiddling of parameters in a model could produce vastly different behavior, transforming regular, periodic events into a seemingly random chaotic pattern.

At a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1972, he gave a talk with a title that captured the essence of his ideas: "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?"...

Lorenz was one in 1,000,000.0000000001. Butterflies the world over are today observing a moment of not flapping to mark the passing of one of the most distinguished scientists of our time.

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A Letter to Sally Kern: If Tucker Should Read This

This was written by Tucker who, at 17 or 18 years in this life, has developed more compassion and common sense than a hatemonger like Sally Kern will ever develop over the course of however long they malinger on the face of this planet. If you are not moved at least a little bit by what he's written in response to Kern's venom, please check that you have a pulse.

Rep Kern:

On April 19, 1995, in Oklahoma City a terrorist detonated a bomb that killed my mother and 167 others. 19 children died that day. Had I not had the chicken pox that day, the body count would've likely have included one more. Over 800 other Oklahomans were injured that day and many of those still suffer through their permanent wounds.

That terrorist was neither a homosexual or was he involved in Islam. He was an extremist Christian forcing his views through a body count. He held his beliefs and made those who didn't live up to them pay with their lives.

As you were not a resident of Oklahoma on that day, it could be explained why you so carelessly chose words saying that the homosexual agenda is worst than terrorism. I can most certainly tell you through my own experience that is not true. I am sure there are many people in your voting district that laid a loved one to death after the terrorist attack on Oklahoma City. I kind of doubt you'll find one of them that will agree with you.

I was five years old when my mother died. I remember what a beautiful, wise, and remarkable woman she was. I miss her. Your harsh words and misguided beliefs brought me to tears, because you told me that my mother's killer was a better person than a group of people that are seeking safety and tolerance for themselves.

As someone left motherless and victimized by terrorists, I say to you very clearly you are absolutely wrong.

You represent a district in Oklahoma City and you very coldly express a lack of love, sympathy or understanding for what they've been through. Can I ask if you might have chosen wiser words were you a real Oklahoman that was here to share the suffering with Oklahoma City? Might your heart be a bit less cold had you been around to see the small bodies of children being pulled out of rubble and carried away by weeping firemen?

I've spent 12 years in Oklahoma public schools and never once have I had anyone try to force a gay agenda on me. I have seen, however, many gay students beat up and there's never a day in school that has went by when I haven't heard the word **** slung at someone. I've been called gay slurs many times and they hurt and I am not even gay so I can just imagine how a real gay person feels. You were a school teacher and you have seen those things too. How could you care so little about the suffering of some of your students?

Let me tell you the result of your words in my school. Every openly gay and suspected gay in the school were having to walk together Monday for protection. They looked scared. They've already experienced enough hate and now your words gave other students even more motivation to sneer at them and call them names. Afterall, you are a teacher and a lawmaker, many young people have taken your words to heart. That happens when you assume a role of responsibility in your community. I seriously think before this week ends that some kids here will be going home bruised and bloody because of what you said.

I wish you could've met my mom. Maybe she could've guided you in how a real Christian should be acting and speaking.

I have not had a mother for nearly 13 years now and wonder if there were fewer people like you around, people with more love and tolerance in their hearts instead of strife, if my mom would be here to watch me graduate from high school this spring. Now she won't be there. So I'll be packing my things and leaving Oklahoma to go to college elsewhere and one day be a writer and I have no intentions to ever return here. I have no doubt that people like you will incite crazy people to build more bombs and kill more people again. I don't want to be here for that. I just can't go through that again.

You may just see me as a kid, but let me try to teach you something. The old saying is sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you. Well, your words hurt me. Your words disrespected the memory of my mom. Your words can cause others to pick up sticks and stones and hurt others.

Sincerely

Tucker

If you should happen to see this, Tucker, good luck to you in college and by all means consider Massachusetts in your plans. This state isn't perfect by any stretch and sure, we have a share of morons who think like Sally Kern. We're also the only state in the country that allows gay marriage, if that's any indicator to you of how things work here. I live in what seems to be considered one of the more conservative parts of the state, but compared to what I've encountered in having lived in many places around the US I would have to say that it's still a place where people have generally figured out how to live-and-let-live. We certainly have more than our share of excellent universities, too. Having read your letter, I've no doubt you'll ace the essay portion of your application and I bet you're a hell of a good student.

When I heard Kern's comments, I have to be honest; I didn't think of the bombing right away. Tucker is 100% correct. For Kern to make such statements in a place where people are so recently and so intimately acquainted with the reality of terrorism takes her horrid bile one step even further into a realm of hatefulness that can be traversed only by the lowest and most selfish people in this world upon which, one way or another, we really ought to be figuring out how to live together. Kern dwells in a reeking darkness shared by a select few who use their public influence to call for evils to be visited upon fellow human beings for no reason other than their own distastes. Kern lives in a hell of her own making that she shares with people like Donald Wildmon and Pat Robertson — people who believe in a deity so fervently that they think they can give marching orders on their behalf and call down divine fury if they can just pray hard enough for the destruction of their "enemies."

You know what? There is a "gay agenda." It consists of wanting the very same things out of life that everyone who doesn't happen to be gay wants. That people like Kern and Wildmon can turn the insistence that everyone deserves the same rights, privileges and protections under the law into some scheme to overthrow civilization in favor of raping two year olds tells us much, much more about what lurks in the hearts of these foul and pathetic creatures than it tells us about the motivations of people who, whether through a coincidence of genetics or development or choice, for that matter, prefer members of their own gender to those of the other gender as lovers. That this makes any difference at all to anyone never fails to boggle my mind. It does nothing to anyone, it means nothing at all to anyone, except those involved.

I've had some experience with the "gay agenda." I have known an uncounted but surely large number of gay men and women who were in and out of all sorts of relationships in the time I knew them — just like the "straight" people I've known. Some were good people, I thought, some were people I wouldn't want trust or even associate with. Some were honest, kind, caring people and some were devious, thieving miscreants who gladly bit the hands that fed them. In short, gay people as a whole are no different, in my experience, from straight people as a whole or, for that matter, people who had no interest in sex at all (yes, I have met a few of those). They all wanted the same things out of life that I wanted; a comfortable living, to work, to live with their partners — in some cases in a legally-protected relationship — and to be allowed to contribute whatever talents they had to society, or to be greedy, selfish pigs who cared nothing for others and were engaged in an endless quest for self-gratification. Not a one, as far as I ever knew, wanted to rape two year olds or commit acts of terrorism or turn their country over to Al Qaida.

I knew two same-sex couples especially well. One was a couple of gents who had been together for better than 15 years when I first met them. One of them gave me one of the biggest breaks I ever had in my life. He recognized some talent in me and gave me an opportunity to exercise it and make a very good living in the process. He was one of the kindest people I have ever known. He and his partner were deeply in love; by all rights, they should have been allowed to marry if they so desired, although I don't know if they wanted to bother with it. When not working on their businesses, they volunteered to work on human rights issues. They were committed not only to each other but to the society in which they live. They were good people. In light of all this, should anyone care that they happened to be two men instead of a man and a woman, or two women, or what have you? I doubt either one of them ever did intentional harm to another human being in their lives.

I knew another couple of gents who had been together for more than 40 years. They lived in the same apartment on Polk Street for at least 30 of those years. One was an author and an artist who spoke at least seven languages and understood the most esoteric philosophies and the history of Western culture as few people I have ever known. They were dedicated to one another until the day that this author died, followed just over a year later by his lifelong partner. Even without a marriage contract, they shared their lives in exactly the same way that any couple might share their lives together. They stood by each other through all of the travails that we humans face in our lives and then a few more because of the simple and meaningless circumstance that they happened to be two males. Their commitment was no less for it. They were kindly, even jovial, characters who delighted in providing a free education to whomever wanted one and not once — not ONCE — did they ever ask for anything in return. These men were worse than terrorists how, exactly? Not only were they good people, they were far better people than Sally Kern, Donald Wildmon, Pat Robertson or Fred Phelps can ever hope to become. That latter group of insidious toxins that infect our society should have counted themselves blessed if such people as these four has deigned to spit upon them.

I am 42 years old. In all of that time, at least half of a lifetime in which I have lived in places like New York City and San Francisco (27 of those 42 years combined, in fact), in all of the times I have found myself wandering through The Castro or Greenwich Village, never once did I wish for a Sally Kern or a Fred Phelps to come and protect me from gay people. In the years since I first became aware of the existence of individuals like Kern and Phelps and Robertson, though, I have often hoped for someone who could protect me from them. People who want to love one another and be left alone will never be a threat to society. The sowers of discord and purveyors of hatred always have been and always will be.

If I were God, I would have long since prepared a sort of Moroccan Feast of these people. If I were Emperor of the Universe, letters to Pat Robertson would need be addressed to Fred Phelps' rectum. I suspect that they would be happier with that arrangement, truth be told.

If Tucker should read this, thanks for being so eloquent, for writing that letter that was such a threat to Sally "The Symptom" Kern that a cop had to stop you from delivering it to her office. Whatever your beliefs might be, I would prefer a million of you to be in this world than even one tenth of that vile hag who is beneath your contempt in every way.

A hyphal tip, too, to Reverend Big Dumb Chimp, in whose blog I first saw this.

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Happy Birthday Chuck and Abe

Today is the 199^th birthday of two men who belong to the ages, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. It is one of those great historical coincidences that both were born on the same day and that both held many values in common that shaped the respective legacies they left us. To review their accomplishments would be trite, I think. That Darwin formulated the first set of ideas that served to unify the field of biology, shifting the way in which mankind viewed the natural world and how it came to be, and that Lincoln undertook the unforgiving task of reforming American society to exclude one person's ownership of another are things that every school child understands in some way.

Darwin also had his own views on slavery. He wrote, for instance:

It is often attempted to palliate slavery by comparing the state of slaves with our poorer countrymen: if the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin; but how this bears on slavery, I cannot see; as well might the use of the thumb-screw be defended in one land, by showing that men in another land suffered from some dreadful disease. Those who look tenderly at the slave owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the position of the latter; what a cheerless prospect, with not even a hope of change! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of you wife and your little children - those objects which nature urges even the slave to call his own - being torn from you and sold like beasts to the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty: but it is a consolation to reflect, that we at least have made a greater sacrifice, than ever made by any nation, to expiate our sin.

— The Voyage of the Beagle, Chapter 21

I don't know if Lincoln was ever aware of Darwin's theory of evolution, having been assassinated five years after its publication. I have no idea how he might have felt about the notion that life changes slowly over time, creating new organisms from old. I get an inkling from his preserved quotes that he would have agreed with the notion that diverse populations are more likely to survive longer than are homogeneous ones, but it's nothing I can prove. It will have to suffice that Lincoln ended legally-sanctioned slavery in the United States, one of the last European-descended nations to do so (Brazil was the last, I think, in 1888).

I will be teaching today; it seems an appropriate thing to teach a biology class on Darwin's birthday. I'm not sure how to work Lincoln into today's lab, though.

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Tom Lantos Dies: Leading Congressional Advocate for Human Rights and Holocaust Survivor

If you know anything about California politics, you probably know something about Tom Lantos. Lantos was the only survivor of the Holocaust of World War II to serve in Congress, and that experience earlier in his life shaped his political career for the rest of it. Lantos was a champion of human rights and human dignity who spent his last years standing up for those values during an administration that spent a good deal of its time redefining torture to suit its purposes and attempting to find ways to thumb its nose at the spirit of the Geneva Convention.

At exactly the point in history when America could use a hundred more men like Tom Lantos, we've lost the only one we had. The 14-term Representative from the San Francisco Bay Area succumbed today to esophageal cancer at age 80.

Longtime Rep. Tom Lantos dies of cancer

(02-11) 10:45 PST WASHINGTON - Rep. Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress and for 27 years a champion of human rights as representative for a district stretching from San Francisco's west side to San Carlos, died today of complications from esophageal cancer, his office said. He was 80.

The San Mateo Democrat was diagnosed with cancer in December but waited a month before revealing he was ill. He died this morning at Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland, a spokeswoman said.

Before he was diagnosed, Lantos was making plans to run in November for his 15th House term. Just last year, he joked he was "in the mid-point of his career," and until recently swam at 5:30 a.m. every day in the House pool...

Lantos put human rights at the top of his agenda throughout his congressional career, and many of the tributes pouring in today cited that commitment...

President Bush called Lantos "a man of character" who was "a living reminder that we must never turn a blind eye to the suffering of the innocent at the hands of evil men."

Lantos lost nearly his whole family in the Holocaust. When he was named chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee last year, he told The Chronicle that "in a sense, my whole life has been a preparation for this job."

Lantos was born in Budapest in 1928 and was 16 when the Nazis took the city in March 1944. Most Jews outside the Hungarian capital were sent to Auschwitz, while young Jewish men from Budapest were taken to forced labor camps.

Lantos was taken to a camp at Szob, a village about 40 miles from the capital, from which he escaped twice. The second time he made it to a safe house in Budapest, where his aunt had also taken refuge.

The Red Army liberated Budapest in January 1945, and Lantos began to search for his family. Most had died, but he managed to contact Annette Tillemann, a childhood friend who had gone into hiding shortly after the German occupation and escaped to Switzerland with her mother. Like Lantos, most of her relatives perished in the death camps.

The two were reunited in Hungary later that winter and married in 1950...

He was criticized in some quarters, however, for an unwavering support of Israel, and he wasn't afraid to be unpopular on a number of issues. As recently as October, he angered the Bush administration and some colleagues when he moved a bill through his committee that defined the killings of Armenians in Turkey in the early 20th century as genocide.

He also made headlines last year when he berated Yahoo Inc. executives during a congressional hearing over their involvement in the jailing of a Chinese journalist. Lantos told the executives, "Morally, you are pygmies..."

Democratic presidential candidate and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama praised Lantos as a man who "never wavered in his defense of freedom and opposition to tyranny," noting that Lantos referred to himself as "an American by choice."

Rep. Mike Pence, a socially conservative Indiana Republican, called Lantos "a giant in Congress ... who stood on the world stage with moral clarity and courage..."

"Chairman Lantos was an indispensable leader in the field of global AIDS and poverty," added Global AIDS Alliance executive director Paul Zeitz. "The fight against HIV/AIDS has lost a real hero. His leadership will be sorely missed..."

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Plague Death in Arizona: The Dangers of Biology

A field biologist working at the Grand Canyon in Arizona has died due to pneumonic plague (Yersinia pestis) infection, most likely contracted from fleas present on a mountain lion:

Plague Suspected In Death Of Man In Arizona

Eric York, a 37 year old wildlife biologist who worked at the Grand Canyon National Park who was found dead at his home on the South Rim of the Canyon in Arizona on November 2nd, probably died of the plague caught while carrying out an autopsy on a mountain lion that had probably died of the disease a week earlier.

Plague, due to the bacterium Yersinia pestis, was confirmed as the likely cause of death following preliminary laboratory tests at the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

York had been treated at a local clinic for flu like symptoms that started three days after he did the autopsy, but nothing more serious than that was diagnosed at the time. When he was found dead health officials suspected either plague or hantavirus that causes a type of hemorrhagic fever, and immediately tracked down 49 people who had been in recent contact with him so they could have aggressive antibiotic treatment. None of them has become ill.

Plague is primarily a disease of animals and rarely infects humans, who can catch it from being bitten by rodent fleas or, as is suspected in the case of York, from direct contact with infected animals. York' symptoms were similar to those of pneumonic plague, the most serious, but least common form of plague.

Plague can be passed on from one human to another, and from animals to humans, through coughing and sneezing, which thrusts infected droplets into the air that is then breathed in by others. However, according to the CDC, human to human infection is rare, and their records show the last time this happened in the US was in 1924...

The last known human pneumonic plague infection before this year occurred in 2000. There has been one other infection this year, but the victim was treated with antibiotics and made a full recovery.

Field biology has numerous hazards, including everything from large carnivores to poisonous reptiles to rare diseases. Unfortunately for York, one of the hazards finally caught up with him in the worst possible way. There is a notion among those outside of science that biologists live in some sort of protected ivory tower, but the truth is that many of the students of the life sciences don't. Even if one has never seen someone like Brady Barr in action on a nature show, though, one should keep in mind that life is simultaneously wondrous and dangerous at the same time. Coming to understand it means that someone, somewhere, is always out risking their lives to bring back a new bit of knowledge for all of our benefit. Most of them, like York, don't do things that make for good TV, so most people go through life totally unaware of the work they do. Like York, most biologists aren't paid tremendous sums of money. They do what they do because there is nothing they'd rather be doing with their lives. They take the precautions they can, as in any hazardous job, but the risk of injury or death to wildlife biologists, disease researchers, and even humble field mycologists, can never be eliminated. I've unintentionally pissed off a few rattlesnakes in my time, so take my word on that one.

York was a young man, and so his death is tragic. I'm sure he didn't go into biology to be a hero, so I won't call him one. I'll say this much, though; when people ask me about my plans for retirement, I always tell them that I don't plan to retire. I plan to keel over dead in some rain forest while hunting after new species, or else collapse at a lab bench while extracting DNA from some strange Siberian mushroom. I'd much rather go out like York than I would like to decay slowly in some planned adult golf course community somewhere. I just hope that York felt the same way about his work; I hope it was his passion. In a sense, that must take some of the sting out of death by mountain lion-vectored plague for those he leaves behind. Don't we all want those words included in our eulogies... "He died doing what he loved."

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Author's Ridge

In Concord's Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is an area called Author's Ridge. Here, the graves of four American literary and philosophical giants are to be found.

		Louisa May Alcott is best known as the author of Little Women. Very little of this woman remains here.
		Ralph Waldo Emerson's marker is a huge rose quartz boulder with a bronze plaque. At the Concord Museum one can see a great number of his artifacts, including his entire study. A naturalist, author and world traveler, I have a great deal of respect for the man. He has long since rejoined the local ecology in the most intimate manner possible.
		Henry David Thoreau's marker is among the simplest in the cemetery. Another naturalist and philosopher with a wicked sense of humor, one of my favorite quotes of his is: Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk. Surely words to live by.
		The grave of Nathaniel Hawthorne, an author who holds a special place in my heart. Without him, we probably would have had no Poe, no Lovecraft, and modern horror literature would be very different. There might not be any cheesy horror flicks without him, and then what would I do when I wanted to put a stop to the spinning of the creaky wheels in my head? Thank you, Nathaniel Hawthorne, for being the intellectual ancestor of Night of the Living Dead and I Bury the Living

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Goodbye to a Grande Dame

I don't imagine that most people who didn't grow up in New York City would know who Brooke Astor was, but to New Yawkuhs and ex-New Yawkuhs alike, hers is a name we saw everywhere in the city. There are few whose lives she didn't touch some way, and with good reason. Astor lived to be 105, which in itself would be an accomplishment.

Of course, that's not why some kid from Brooklyn would have known the name Astor. The Astors are a family that helped to make New York, and few Astors did as much for the intellectual and cultural institutions of one of the world's most intellectually and culturally significant towns. Brooke Astor got a lot out of New York, to be sure, but she also spent her long, long life putting a lot back into it. She gave more millions than any of us will ever see to the New York Public Library, the Botanical Gardens, the Museum of Natural History, and the Museum of Modern Art. If all those things make you think "cold and impersonal marble halls" for some reason, consider that she also gave her support to various programs that helped train disadvantaged youth for employment and that provided them with money for higher education in the forms of grants and scholarships. She put cash into developing affordable housing back when New York was floundering through some of its worst economic hardships and Jerry Ford told us to "drop dead."

This is a lady (and I mean that in terms of her class as much as anything) who touched a whole lot of lives, including my own.

Astor isn't being buried in New York City, and it doesn't matter. She imbued the city with her spirit. She'll be interred, instead, in Irvington, a town that overlooks the Hudson which, as did Astor herself, spends its existence flowing through the city. The epitaph on her tombstone will read, "I had a wonderful life."

She sure did, and she made a lot of other lives a little more wonderful in the bargain, too, which is about as much as any of us can hope for. She deserved to live to 105, and she deserves thanks from people like me who never met her but who benefit from all that New York has to offer and so all that she had to offer New York.

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A Legend Passes: Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman, Famed Director, Dies at 89

Ingmar Bergman, the “poet with the camera” who is considered one of the greatest directors in motion picture history, died today on the small island of Faro where he lived on the Baltic coast of Sweden, Astrid Soderbergh Widding, president of The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, said. Bergman was 89...

In Bergman, the mind is constantly seeking, constantly inquiring, constantly puzzled...

“I want to be one of the artists of the cathedral that rises on the plain,” he said. “I want to occupy myself by carving out of stone the head of a dragon, an angel or a demon, or perhaps a saint; it doesn’t matter; I will find the same joy in any case. Whether I am a believer or an unbeliever, Christian or pagan, I work with all the world to build a cathedral because I am artist and artisan, and because I have learned to draw faces, limbs, and bodies out of stone. I will never worry about the judgment of posterity or of my contemporaries; my name is carved nowhere and will disappear with me. But a little part of myself will survive in the anonymous and triumphant totality. A dragon or a demon, or perhaps a saint, it doesn’t matter!”

Mr. Bergman’s celluloid carvings often revealed an obsession with death. But in later life he said that the obsession had abated. “When I was young, I was extremely scared of dying,” he said. “But now I think it a very, very wise arrangement. It’s like a light that is extinguished. Not very much to make a fuss about.”

Perhaps Mr. Bergman would have forgiven us for making just a little fuss about it today... not on his account, but on ours. Yes, it's just a little light being extinguished, but every light extinguished leaves the world a little darker.

Bergman was unique, a true innovator, and while I can't say that I loved every film he made, I can say that when he failed it was because he took the risks that an innovator must take if progress is to be made and vision realized. Luckily for us, his work has been preserved and will stay with us for centuries to come.

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